Monday, October 26, 2009

John Cole Reminds Us of What a REAL War on Press Freedom Was

It was the tactics the Bush Administration used to bully, intimidate, mislead, and manipulate the media. Cole's excellent examples:

Paying Armstrong Williams, Michael McManus, and Maggie Gallagher and others for favorable opinions about WH policies or to attack opponents of the WH.

-Planting Jeff Gannon to lob softball questions.

-Used reporters to out a CIA agent, then sat by and watched reporters go to jail to protect their sources.

-Fed reporters misinformation about WMD in Iraq, then used those reporters stories as corroborating evidence of the existence of WMD in Iraq.

-treated Helen Thomas like a leper.

-waged a coordinated campaign against NBC.

-kicked all the NY Times reporters off of their planes.

-the Pentagon Pundit program, which sold the war by planting former military officers on networks. Uncovering this story earned a journalist the fucking Pulitzer.

-Staged mock press conferences with FEMA employees pretending to be reporters.

-allowed Ari Fleischer to tell everyone (but directed at journalists) they needed to “watch what they say and what they do.”


By the way, again, just for the record, I'll say this: Fox "News" is merely the propaganda arm of the Republican Psychotic Right Wing. It bears as much of a relationship to journalism as did Pravda under the old Soviet regime. It employs pathological liars and thugs like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and is run by a right-wing Republican hack/hitman named Roger Ailes, who has the ethics of a starving sewer rat, which just barely puts him above Karl Rove.

Period.

3 comments:

Awntie Spyder said...

liking your blog more every time I read it. thanks

Anonymous said...

Joseph, I have given up on the press. I have found a new (old) website that I like. http://www.gallup.com/poll/politics.aspx I have enjoyed watching the gallup polls on many issues. This one was interesting. It shows President Obama with the second lowest rating of any president other than Former President Bill Clinton in this first term at the end of October. What is your take on this poll?

Joseph Miller said...

1. Obama still has strong numbers
2. The Republicans as a party are widely despised and rejected.
3. Bush in Oct 2001 was still in his 9/11 glow.
4. Reagan hit 35% approval in Jan 83. He was reelected with 58% in Nov 84.
5. The statistical difference between Obama and other presidents is low.
6. No other president has ever had a full time, Pravda-style lying propaganda machine--Fox "News"--attacking and smearing him 24/7.